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Africa United

Challenges

Three African children and a European woman stands on a film set, a sound boom and members of a film production crew are nearby.

(Click image to see large version)

The five children are key to the film so the team searched the schools and drama groups of Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and the UK, before holding a final casting workshop in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, in December 2009. Two of the five children are UK-based, although they were both born in Rwanda at the time of the genocide, and 15-year-old Eria Ndayambaje, who plays the team leader Dudu, is part of a travelling theatre group in Uganda.

The children begin their epic journey in Rwanda, travelling through Burundi, Congo, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe before arriving in South Africa. In reality, the crew was limited to three countries by the co-production treaty and budget restrictions.

"We could have made it really straightforward and shot the whole film in South Africa where they have the infrastructure in place. But we wanted to make it as authentic as possible within our restrictions" says Sheppard from Footprint Films.